Behavioural change dichotomy

Why do people find change so difficult, especially changes in behaviour? Like changing eating habits, stopping smoking, changing our work habits despite us knowing they are for the better? I believe the answer is confidence.

Our resistance to change is a survival technique. If we feel confident it is safe to say that we are happy with many of the decisions that we’ve made that have led up to this point – and so change is easier.

If we are unconfident our body interrupts that as the fact we have made some poor decisions – and so it believes our ability to make good ones may be impaired, so it makes change more difficult for us; so our level of certainty about change needs to be greater and change becomes difficult.

But what is change? I believe it is feeling the urge to do one thing, and doing something different. Change is resisting our habits to form better ones.

This highlights one of the major problems in the way we interact with those around us. We often criticise if we believe behaviour is inappropriate despite only wanting to help? We may focus on the negatives hoping to scare that person into changing. Of course the effect of criticism often erodes confidence – and with less confidence change actually becomes much more difficult. Are we helping?

What we really want to say is “I agree with all the choices you have made up till now. Going forward I believe the direction you will find most appropriate is this…”.

Think of our lives as journeys – perhaps driving your car. You don’t want to find you’ve driven for hundreds of miles in one direction only to be told it’s the wrong way. Better to be simply told the route to get to your destination from that point. In fact, when you have found that you’ve travelled in the wrong direction do you simply stop and drive back the way you came or take an alternative route? If you are like most, the U-turn feels like the last resort.

If you really want someone to change you need to boost their confidence so they can change themselves. With confidence people can make the right decisions in life – change their jobs, give up smoking, improve their eating habits. Without confidence, habits good or bad, will always rule.

Why do people smile?

I’ve often wondered why people smile. What is “happy” and why do we demonstrate it in such a fashion. We don’t often smile on our own; it’s more of a social function. The other day while playing with a friends new born child I was fascinated by its smile and the effect it had on its audience. Adults would perform various antics in an attempt to get the child to smile. It would smile when someone performed a new antic or new sound and I felt compelled to join in. It occurred to me that a child is using a smile to provoke us to interact with it. To help its development. When it stops smiling people try harder. When it smiles people repeat or continue their behaviour until the child stops smiling. So it seemed reasonable to assume that a child smiles at the unexpected – something it has not learnt or does not expect. If we think about ourselves as adults – we smile at jokes when the punch line was unexpected; showing those around us that we've learnt something new encouraging them to continue to teach us. So perhaps the smile is saying to people “I can learn something from you”. It encourags people to continue. Perhaps the ideal strategy is to smile all the time? Maybe it is. But often it's involuntary; something difficult to control. Although some people do seem to smile a lot more than others - take the people of Jamaica? There is something that also inhibits our smile - social hierarchies. People often smile at their superiors; subconsciously showing them their interest to learn, yet people in senior positions often smile less often at their subordinates.

The difference between an adult and a child.

The difference between an adult and a child has always been unclear due to the various dimensions used to describe the boundary. You can measure it biologically, looking at the age of discreet physical changes in the body; you can view it by achievements or by various mental processes. I prefer the psychological view. If we are measured by our actions, then our actions are determined by our minds. I think the answer is simple. Taking responsibility for solving our own problems is a quality of an adult rarely seen in a child. Children will always seek the support of parents or friends to solve their issues. This traits often follows us into adulthood where we spend our time complaining while doing very little to solve the issue. We (in the UK) are a society of children. I too find myself complaining but stop, and remind myself that I am an adult and am responsible for solving my own problems. Interestingly enough as you start addressing problems face-to-face you feel less inclined to complain about them.

A Man’s Manual (Introduction) - part 1

By Gavin (work in progress)

"A self-aware person will act completely within their capabilities to their pinnacle, while an ignorant person will flounder and encounter difficulty", Socrates

Preface

You get a manual when you purchase your new HI-FI, you receive one when you get a camera – but what's the point? "So you know how to use it". Of course. It's all about ensuring you know what to do when it doesn't do what it's supposed to do, how to fix it, how to get the most out of it.

Mother Nature can be applauded for many achievements, but her ability to write instruction manuals is a definite week point.

So, doing what humans are capable of doing, I'm writing a manual.

I am a man, I try to understand women, I try to understand other men, but the focus of this manual is what it is to be a man. Our "computer", our brain, our emotions are something that eludes many of us. It's damn confusing. It's volatile. And when we popped out of our loving mothers all those years ago, we were never given any lessons on how to use it.

Women generally have had more practise at articulating what they believe is happening. I've even read scientific studies that suggest their "vocal processor" is more advanced than men. But in both sexes a link is still missing. So there may be a difference in the sexes ability to articulate but if there is uncertainty as to what is being articulated it still leads to problems (i.e. arguments). I'll talk more about this later.

If ever there was a case of "the blind leading the blind" it is our current strategy of understanding ourselves. Many people are uncertain but we tend to follow the person who is good at looking most certain, or confident!

So what makes me think I know better? I could say "because I'm a man". But honestly, I don't know that I do. I was born scientifically minded. I was qualified as a software engineer. I even went on to start my own business. But something that has always existed in me is an ability to see a little deeper into things, often too deep. Manifesting itself in a constant need to understand and rationalise.

And this skill/burden/gift has given me a lot of plausible explanations to the lives we all lead.

As I share my thoughts with others I can see how my search for self-understanding is one commonly sought. Perhaps not consciously but we are all faced with times of confrontation and difficult decisions. We all "feel" things we would prefer not to. At times we are confused by what we feel. So this book is a journey into a few plausible reasons why things are as they are.

Introduction

Congratulations. You own the most sophisticated biological machine that, to our knowledge, exists in the entire universe. Featuring more than 630 highly specific muscles, cardiovascular system, central nervous system, digestive system, endocrine system, self replenishing hair (if you're lucky), immune system, integumentary (Skin) system, lymphatic system, peripheral nervous system, reproductive system, respiratory system, skeletal system, Urinary System……etc.

Your machine operates efficiently at about 20 degrees Celsius, but with optional-extras can function in extreme temperatures.

With your machine you can reproduce, ponder the meaning of life, create stuff, and share your knowledge with others and many more exciting functions.

MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) is largely determinate on ensuring you look after your machine staying within operating normal's, but averages (in the western world) at about 76.9 years. Make them count!

For the purposes of this manual, we will call your machine "the body". The machine also has a highly sophisticated CPU which we shall call, you'll never guess, "the brain".

Let's begin our journey….

Evolution

"Nature does nothing in vain" Aristotle.

Let's start at the beginning. To understand who we are we need to look back. And surprisingly; not too far.

Many species are driven by their emotions; hunger, reproduction and survival to name a few. But humans have developed something unusual. We have become aware of our emotions, we can think about how we feel. We are aware of our feelings. And the irony of the situation; our emotions don't talk to our intellect. So we often are uncertain where our emotional responses originate.

Clearly if someone pinches you, your brain knows where the pain originated. If someone shouts at you, your ears pinpoint the sound source with a great degree of accuracy. But some days you are sitting on a bus and you "feel" depressed and you just can't figure out where that feeling came from!

Mother Nature has a simple strategy which she ingrains on us all. Survive.

Mainly survival as a species, but obviously to achieve this we need to survive as individuals – but only for as long as we are useful in this pursuit.

To survive a changing environment we adapt, our genes make this possible, this has been reasonable effective in the past; especially when you consider historically environments and social structures change very slowly; over many thousands of years.

Our life-spans are relatively short to enable our genes to change. If we lived longer; the adaptation process would take longer as changes in our genes occur when we reproduce and there is a correlation with life-expectancy and birth-rates.

As a result we, as a species, we have been pretty much the same for thousands of years.

It's probably worth while considering how "young" we are as a species. It always amazes me the issues we are currently struggling to resolve; hunger, poverty, poor education, inequality, sexism, racism, ageism and many more. Even in my life-time we've seen widespread acceptance of women as equals, the acceptance of homosexuality. And a better understanding towards people who are different.

It seems farcical that these issues ever existed. We have computers, we are advanced? How can these issues exist? Some problems feel more akin to children fighting at school. And yet in many parts of the world continuing issues exacerbated by people that should know better. But improvements are being made, and while these exceed decline the world should become a better place. (fingers crossed)

Main points

• We are driven by emotions often post-rationalising our emotionally driven actions.
• Emotions and intellect are not connected. You can't directly control your emotions (i.e. why not try to feel angry or loved, you may find yourself trying to imagine a scenario which will provoke an emotion but you can't directly make yourself feel it).

Population

About 10,000 years ago the world population was 1,000,000 (For reference: In London, England today there is about 8 million people!). And now the world population is about 6,500,000,000! (Although by the time you read this it's probably gone up by another couple of million).

Thousands of years ago you might have lived in a village of thirty people, today that same "village" would have 195,000 people! That would fill Wembley stadium twice (with a sizable queue outside).

The majority of the expansion has occurred in the last 2,000 years and as a result it has fundamentally changed everyone's lives. Unfortunately, our genes weren't designed to adapt at that speed. So we are living in an alien environment. Our bodies can deal with, but our minds struggle.

So how does this actually affect us?

Ever felt really upset when you break-up with your girlfriend (or boyfriend)? That horrible pain in your stomach that can take ages to go away? This is one such artefact left over from ancient times. More about this one later.

Main points

• We are the way we are to exist in an environment which for many of us is long since extinct. An environment where we may only meet a small handful of people in our entire lives.

Brain

Brain (Central Processing Unit)

The brain is the most complex organ in the human body. It is the control centre of life. It not only affects and governs everything you do, how you think, feel and act, but what kind of person you are.

Proportionate to body weight, humans have the largest brains among mammals. No animal brain approaches the human brain's capacity for learning, language and thought. But the human brain is not just a super-computer. No computer can dream, fall in love or get bored.

We interpret the world via our senses; we see, we hear, we smell, we touch and we feel.

We are aware of our environment, but there are two ways in which we interpret our environment. We intellectualise it, and emotionalise it and we do this independently of either process.

The emotional part of your brain can see and hear what you do; but you're not aware of its eavesdropping antics. You would probably ignore it if it didn't have a strangle-hold over your feelings which can often lead to confusing situations where you "want" to do one thing, but "feel" you should do something else. i.e. We know we should stand-up and perform a speech or presentation, but we "feel" nervous about doing it.

Both these functions have their unique talents. Your ability to intellectualise a situation also powers your ability to articulate. People quite often mentally talk to themselves; something known as the "inner voice" (don't worry – you're not mad). You can focus on a particular problem and consider it to the dizzy heights to come to a rationale, considered answer which your intellectual brain can explain to others.

The emotional component can process a wide range of different inputs. It generalises massive amounts of data which would overwhelm your ability to "think" it through, and it gives you a "feeling" to guide you towards a solution.

It almost sounds like a form of schizophrenia which we all experience.

Both sides need each other. Often we would be so easily distracted to get any real benefit from our intellectual powers if we didn't have a small but persistent reminder about how we "feel" about something which keeps us focused on the job in hand.

Main points

• There are two ways in which we interpret our environment. We intellectualise it, and emotionalise it and we do this independently of either process.

Memory

What do we remember? To answer that we should consider how we remember.

During our lives we have an incredible number of experiences; the potency of the memory is often associated with the level of emotion associated with the action. We can all remember our first kiss but I doubt we can remember our first maths lesson?

As time passes our memories of the actual event fade leaving us with the emotional footprint. In other words, the majority of the memory becomes emotional – more of a feeling than a video or facsimile of events. And these emotions are associated with our interpretation of the events at the time.

Some people have feuds that run over years; continually fuelled by nothing more than a feeling of injustice as both parties have long forgotten the detail of the event.

We all have a history. Memories of "the one that got away" some associated with regrets and others relief. But all have contributed to our ability to make better decisions about subsequent relationships.

But do our feelings associated with regret offer us any benefit? The simple answer – it's unlikely. Although that doesn't make those feelings go away (I wish it did at times).

I remember watching the Ridley Scott film "Blade Runner" when I was young. I was mesmerised by it although I have to admit I didn't understand a lot of it. I simply hadn't had enough experience of life to relate to particular sequences. As I grew older I maintained the same feelings towards the film. And even when I had the appropriate life experiences my memory of the film was unaltered.

Simply put, my memory of the film had faded, leaving me with a positive feeling. Of course I had bits and pieces of the film in my head, but not enough to mentally replay and re-interpret.

It was only when I watched the film again as an adult that I was able to see it and this time; understand it.

And this is often what can happen when we reflect on the past. So something you remember as being funny then, if it happened now may not be funny. It's all relative to who you where when you had the experience.

Going on holiday is another good example. During your holiday each day passes, you do interesting things but you are living in the "now" and the now feels normal. Only on your return you romanticise the holiday, and on reflection it was an amazing holiday and you wish you could go back! It's all relative. One reason why it's best to live in the "now", because relativity doesn't exist. If you live in the past you rely on the volatility of your brains ability to accurately remember the past – which it doesn't do very well.

So if you have negative feelings about events in the past it's best to remember the relative nature of memories. You are different now. You are older, and wiser. So it's best to look forward, and leave the past in the past.

Tip: Put on some upbeat music. Learn a new language (or act on improving yourself). You will feel better.

Learning

"At birth, a baby is not a person, but a potential person. In order to become a "real" person, the child's inherent potential must be realized. Unhappiness and frustration are caused by the unrealized potential of a person, leading to failed goals and a poor life."Aristotle.

We learn through trial and error.

When we are young there is little that causes us to make one choice over another, we haven't had any experiences. As we age we randomly make choices, some make us feel good, others bad.

The choices which have positive repercussions make us more prevalent to make the same choice again with the opposite occurring for those with negative repercussions.

Imagine your mind as a highway, many roads all linking different locations. When you want to get to a particular location you drive down a motor-way. Sometimes you try alternative routes some of which get you to your destination quicker. So subsequent times you wish to make the same journey you take better, and better routes. The difference in this example is we are using the journey duration as the choice determinate – but with people it is whether it feels good or not, the nature of the brain is every journey is pretty quick.

Obviously we become accustomed to making particular choices long after the "feel good" quotient no longer exists. But our development as we age slowly refines our ability to intellectually fit into our society.